


Meetings and Common Ground

by ilyena_sylph, Merfilly



Series: Leaving Monsters Behind [4]
Category: Aliens (1986), Pitch Black (2000)
Genre: Character Death Fix, Crossover, F/M, Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-27
Updated: 2011-08-27
Packaged: 2017-10-23 02:39:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/245388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ilyena_sylph/pseuds/ilyena_sylph, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Riddick and crew make groundfall on Cameron's Run to meet up with Hicks and company</p>
            </blockquote>





	Meetings and Common Ground

Riddick stepped off the shuttle, letting his senses take in the air, his shielded eyes studying the sunset-bright land, the people. Not all that many, but enough that if he wanted to he could hunt out among them. He wouldn’t… these were all his kind of people, or they wouldn’t be here. Survivors, killers, the lost and broken... the ones society already threw away if they didn’t turn their backs on it first. He had heard about Hicks being out here after he got out the last time, and he’d wondered a little about what had made that Marine—bright, clean, light eyed… not an angel, but sure as hell no devil like Johns -- dive for the underground.

He spotted the blond after a couple of minutes of looking, started to nod – and then the woman standing beside Hicks with her head back, dark hair puffed out around her face in curls, deep hazel eyes sweeping the area with long, lazy certainty and an edge of tension, made _all_ of his attention focus on her. Hard muscle under the clothes, weapons hidden on her, strapped under the outer layer, a couple of scars... The deepest scars were in her eyes, in the set of her lips and the jaw under them, and the back of his mind purred the way it did for no-one but Carolyn. **Survivor**. One that had seen something horrible, and she... she hadn’t run.

He wasn’t sure anything was going to make that woman run again, not with that set to her body… and wasn’t that… interesting.

`~`~`~`~`

Ripley felt those hidden eyes sweep over her, felt the prickle she had grown to know too well as the presence of danger. She took in the slight woman with the cherub's face turned to an angel of death, noting the weariness of the eyes, the still weak pose of a body broken and mending. She noted the shaven-head of the youth beside them, taking in small details that said 'scarred' in all the ways that pinged her maternal instincts. But it was the man, the bald, goggled man that made Ripley's attention focus, made her skin tighten, caused her muscles to tense for a fight.

Hicks had said they would be meeting a man they could trust, but this was no man. This was a drone with intelligence, a killer of the highest order, a predator that even a Queen should fear. Ripley felt that awareness coil deep in her stomach, and she focused fully on his face, fierce protection of her family written there, a no-nonsense warning radiating off of her.

`~`~`~`~`

Riddick saw her weight shift, then nearly felt the change in the air as she saw _him_ … and his lips slid back from his teeth in a slow, lazy smile at the threat written across her face and her body, the silent, savage warning that this woman would shred apart anything that threatened – not just her, no, the warning written in the muscle under her skin extended to Hicks beside her. And another. He couldn’t see the child, but the way she held herself, the way her eyes had run over Jack, they all said ‘mother’ – in all of the senses of mother grizzly, mother wolf. So... where was the cub? Or cubs?

He’d find that out soon enough. Right now, the woman braced for the fight was going to have to be reassured that he wasn’t interested in hunting her or her brood. He might have been interested in her, once, but he didn’t need that any more. He owed Hicks too much to threaten him, or his, and kids had never been his thing. He forced his head to turn, to look away from the ferocity of the beauty there, and looked at Carolyn, one of his hands coming to her shoulder lightly as he spoke, tipping his jaw to point back that way. “There’s Hicks. Looks like he’s picked up a partner. 'Course, so did I.”

"So you did," Carolyn said, taking in the subtle currents of danger, not fully comprehending all that Riddick did. She just knew that something was less than easy, but she found it reassuring to have his hand on her, and pushed back into it while trying to process what was happening below her awareness.

Hicks didn't reach out to shake Riddick's hand when they finally were close enough to converse. He just gave a tight smile, the smile of a bitten wolf, and nodded politely at the youth and woman before focusing on Riddick. "You made it. I could barely believe the query Bishop passed on to me about you." He then looked at Ripley, felt that coiling in her, and placed his hand flat on the back of her shoulder, trying to ease her out of her tension. He should have known that Ellen couldn't look at Riddick and not see his danger. "Richard Riddick, meet Ellen Ripley. You have something in common; you both saved my life."

That piece of trivia clicked something in Ripley; Hicks trusted because Hicks owed. Not the safest place to be, but she knew the depths of that loyalty, personally. Still, the inhumanity of the man across from her was not easily dismissed... yet the woman with him, the one with tragedy etched into her face despite what should have been a pixie's look, trusted the predator touching her, too. And the youth had moved close, close to the man, like he was the primary for the youth's orbit.

Riddick stroked his fingers over Carolyn’s shoulder again, half attempting to ease her unsettledness, nodding at Hicks and Ripley – Ellen. Too soft a name for her – as they reached them. Jack had come in close against his shoulder already, wary as a cat in the guarded stance. Jack knew, he was sure, that the woman there was trying to decide how much danger they were, the way that Carolyn didn’t, quite. The answer was none, to Ellen at least. But she’d have to decide that on her own. He wasn’t surprised that she’d saved Hicks’ life sometime. She looked like the kind of woman that would, and it would have taken something like that for Hicks to be as close to her as he was. That the rest of his company except the android had all turned out to be deceased was another interesting thing, one to ask about later. And Hicks was trying to calm Ripley down… he knew what he had.

“Nice to see you again, Hicks. I did a little looking, found out you’d shown some more sense... figured you’d at least be a decent place to start, since you kept me loose once.” Riddick let his voice slide low and smooth and amused as he looked down at Carolyn, back over his shoulder at Jack, letting the shift of his body explain that he meant ‘with them.’ “Ripley. Hello.”

Hicks smiled, more genuinely, at that. "Company would have made me disappear, if I'd stayed. Ran into a piece of nastiness they'd rather no one really know about."

His words, delivered with the clipped feel of a soldier reliving a nightmare he didn't want to admit to lanced more anger, more...fear...through Ripley, making her shift slightly. She got it on a leash though, looking at Riddick in judgment. Hicks had set him free, somehow, by those words. Hicks was usually a good judge of a man or woman.

"It is a new place to start, at least," she finally said. "Good depends on your view of the world." She shrugged. "Need a hand getting anything?" she offered, as the shuttle's luggage was dropped for claiming.

Riddick skinned his lips back from his teeth again at Hicks’s words, shrugging one shoulder a little in agreement, and… yes. He’d picked the right thing to say to help calm Ripley down. Good. They didn’t need that kind of a headache, though he and Carolyn and Jack could always just go separate ways from them if Ripley wouldn’t settle.

“Yeah… we know a little something about that, ourselves.” There were reasons Carolyn Fry, Docking Pilot, had never gone anywhere near any offices of the company that had once paid her. The offer from Ripley let his shoulders ease down a little, as she apparently decided at least for the moment, to trust Hicks’ judgment. “We’ve got a couple of bags over there, but nothing we can’t sling ourselves. Jack – “

“Got it, got it...” Jack moved, trotting back the few feet to catch up the pair of small bags, one over each shoulder as Jack came back.

Ripley nodded. "We've got a landcrawler over that way. Enough room for everyone inside, and gear has external stowage," she said.

"I'll introduce you to the other member of our family there," Hicks said, making it clear in his understated way that Ripley was his, he was Ripley's and that was just the nature of the universe.

Carolyn nodded, feeling things shift, settle, and let out the breath she'd half held in relief. She was ready to stop running, ready to make the new life they'd discussed in quiet tones on New Mecca. Riddick was well-suited to a rugged frontier world, and he believed she was too. Jack was in for anything Riddick said they could do, whether it was going bounty hunting themselves for some of the fragmented human federations outside company control, or just building a name out here.

Riddick nodded, letting his hand finally slide off Carolyn’s shoulder now that everything had settled out. Once Jack was back with them and at his shoulder, they headed towards the land crawler, waiting for that last introduction.

Hicks rapped in code on the door before he opened it, and Riddick heard the power down of an energy stunner before they could see the user of it. "Riddick, Fry, Jack... this is Newt," the ex-marine introduced as a slightly built, grim blonde became visible. Ripley moved on into the crawler, hand going immediately to her foster-child's shoulder.

Riddick stood there for a long moment, looking at the girl. Most people would probably have looked at the little waif of a blond with the angel curls and blue eyes and dismissed her... Riddick saw the tight mouth and the flatness in those light blue eyes and the wire-muscle under her skin and knew another survivor when she stared at him, her hand tightening on the grip of the stunner. Still just a kid... He shook his head, smiling at her slowly, more gently than he would have been able to before Carolyn and Jack. “Evening, Newt,” he said, voice soft, and waited a moment.

Newt wasn’t afraid of most people, especially not when she had a weapon – but the stranger they must have come to meet had sent ice running through her veins the moment she could see him through the crawler’s opened hatch. That wasn’t a man, everything that had kept her alive in the colony before Ripley and the marines came screamed it at her. That was two-legged danger like a drone, like one of the biggest bulls... Ripley crawled back next to her, hand on her shoulder strong but gentle, and Ripley’s pulse wasn’t fast, it was calm, steady, just like her breath. That meant Ripley thought this was okay. She looked up for a second, checking her foster-mother’s dark eyes. They were calm, too, and maybe this would be all right.

Then he spoke, calm, easy low brush of his voice like Jonesy’s fur over her ears, and his smile was a real one, even if she couldn’t see his eyes under those dark goggles. More importantly, he held still and waited for her -- //he knows...// -- to decide. Hicks wanted him, Ripley thought he was okay. “Hello, Riddick.” She didn’t really whisper any more, but her voice wasn’t any louder than his.

Carolyn felt, again, the undercurrents of tension, and waited, until after the child spoke. "Hi, Newt." She smiled, and felt the girl take her measurement with something far too adult for her young years.

Jack, however, was the one who reached out, hand going to an offer of a shake. Newt wasn't physically the same age, but not too much younger, not really, and not at all in the way Newt appraised the world. "I'm glad to meet you, Newt." Jack saw a girl whose past had been erased by tragedy, much as Jack had selectively erased the past by leaving it all behind.

Hicks ushered everyone in to the crawler, and Ripley settled to one side of Newt while Jack took the other. That meant Carolyn was between Hicks and Riddick. Hicks set off for the spread he had claimed, where he worked as an arms instructor, general repairer, and part time farmer. It was a hard life, but it was a free one.

"Got plans?" Hicks asked, which had Ripley listening closely. "Been some mercenary hirings out this way."

Newt took the offered hand, looking at the bigger… boy? girl? She couldn’t quite tell. The clothes and the shaved head and the posture all looked like a boy, but something in the face and the voice – she didn’t like not being sure, but it didn’t matter once she looked up at Jack’s eyes, goggles pushed up on shaved skin instead of down. Those eyes… they were like hers, almost. Jack had been through something bad, too. //Not the drones, no, they didn’t have more alive, please….// She reached out, solid muscle over her small bones catching on in a sure strong grip, stunner in her lap for now. “I’m glad too. Hi.”

“First of all, let Fry finish healing up, while I find us somewhere we can nail a house together.” Riddick replied, voice easy, shrugging his shoulder casually as he thought that over, looking over Carolyn’s head at Hicks. Both of those survivors behind him… it made the back of his neck tighten a little, but Jack and the girl seemed like they were getting on. “Depending on what work’s going on, might take Jack with me to pick up some cash that way, though.”

"Awesome score!" came the expected response from the back. Carolyn didn't say a word; Jack had chosen this, and really wasn't meant for normal anymore.

Hicks nodded. "Might be easier on my nerves to know Ripley'd have back up if I head out for a time. Bishop's still finding people for me."

“Yeah,” Riddick agreed, looking at Carolyn for a second. He looked back over his shoulder at the noise, smile crossing his lips again at the indignantly annoyed look on the small girl’s face before he turned his eyes at Jack. "_Might._ You’re still not ready enough for some things. We’ll see.”

"We can talk about it later," Hicks said, eyes flicking back briefly to see Ripley had her poker face on.

Newt made an annoyed noise, toes of her boot pushing into the back of the crawler’s seat as she glared at the back of Hicks’ head. Jack returned a glare at Riddick as well, and then the pair of young ones noted each other again.

There was too much common ground to stand on to not see a friendship in the making, not when it all hinged on surviving monsters.


End file.
